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| Asteroids |
You did it! You raised $5 billion dollars to mine an asteroid and did just that. They didn’t think you could, but $10 billion for immediate delivery of iron, platinum, nickel, and water to the orbiting habitat project just cleared your bank with an agreement to supply another $10 billion worth of material over the next 15 years.
Paper bags take 5 X the water to make and 7 X the fuel to transport than plastic bags
Now what to do with a mined-out asteroid?
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| Asteroid being worked on. |
Careful programming of the mining drones left tunnels in concentric circular paths around the axis of the asteroid. It spins around that axis, producing .75 artificial gravity in the tunnel nearest the surface. It still has a lot of equipment on it, including a used coil gun/ mass driver propulsion system with enough iron left to run it for another 300 years. Ice storage systems are intact and some water left entrained in rock, about half a cubic mile. A 200 feet diameter repair bay has been cut a quarter mile deep in one end with a space tug parked in the center on tensioned cables. The bay is connected by airlock to the pressurized habitat portion of the asteroid that all those mining tunnels have been turned in to. Several side caverns are packed with deep space drones of various capability. The crown jewel is the new fusion reactor for those dark, cold times out in the asteroid belt when the Sun gets too weak to make those solar panels work efficiently.
Why so much equipment and careful design for a mined-out asteroid?
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| Highly modified asteroid. |
The Swiss government has just rented the asteroid for its next two laps around the Sun, about two and a half years, for deep space studies of the asteroid belt and a flyby of Mars to deliver supplies to the Scandinavian colony there. That rent means another $750 million dollars; half Swiss Francs, half Aquacoin (the water based cryptocurrency used in space); into the bank account. And you thought RV rentals were outrageous. Actually, it’s quite cheap for what they’re getting, but you have ulterior motives. While the Swiss are doing their studies, your prospecting drones will be cataloguing more asteroids in the belt with the idea of finding another worth mining. The Swiss know this. All deals are transparent in space.
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| Astronauts putting net on asteroid. |
This scenario presupposes some technological developments that may or may not take place over the next few decades. Practical nuclear fusion is, obviously, the biggest hurdle. The artificial intelligence to run autonomous drones is another. Once those technologies are up and running, recycling mined-out asteroids into Solar System spanning space ships will be no problem. They have a built-in radiation shield. Spun up, they have artificial gravity. Those are two of the big problems in navigating long distances in deep space.
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| Asteroid miner drone. |
There is one sneaky, ill-perceived technological hurdle to be overcome to make this series of future events likely. The human aging problem must be solved. Humans need to live longer in order to take on the kind of projects needed to become a spacefaring species. Humans need to live in good physical condition for 150 to 200 years after adolescence and before declining into old age. Not only will it make such projects more likely, it will force humanity into a longer view of the future. We will start taking care of the planet, recycling to the max, planning for the far future. Why? Because now it’s personal. You no longer need the kids and grandkids as an excuse to do good things for the future. Do it for yourself! You’re going to be there.
It costs $4000 to recycle ton of plastic bags worth $500 on open market.
Back to asteroids. At some point, someone is going to get brave and break that asteroid out of its natural orbit with the propulsion drive, start using planets and moons as gravity slings, and really start exploring our Solar System. It’s a big place. People could be on missions that last decades exploring the moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn. I wonder what the science fiction of those times will be like.
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